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Mini Meee

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Asus were the leaders in the new generation of ultra Mobile PCs but with more brands entering this market is the EeePC900 worht the money?

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This review is a little late, you might think, since Asus has just launched the EeePC 1000 and you would be absolutely right. I have been trying to review this machine since April and, unable to borrow a machine from Asus I actually put my money where my mouth is and bought one through a wonderful company called TCR Direct (www.tcrdirect.com). Having never used a Linux machine I decided to go for the 20 GB version and it arrived quick as a flash.

Do you believe in love at first sight? Well, I was completely smitten by the machine. Perfect for bloggers and light enough for us girls to just slip in your handbag, the AsusEeePC is a must have. I would rather spend my money on this than the latest designer clutch (girlie technical term).

However, and I'm afraid this is a bit of a biggie, I started to have a major problem more or less straight away. When the machine had been turned on for a while it spontaneously changed font. Not just any old font, either. This was the Superhero of fonts that could overwrite anything it touched. Go see the Linux website and you will see what I mean http://www.linux.com/forums/forum/4?startnum=61 I have spoken to a number of website and programme developers and they were puzzled how my machine had hacked the font with apparent ease.

My heart sank when I realised my little beauty would have to go back. That's when the fun started. You try dealing with Asus customer services and stay sane, I challenge you. Finally after much testing and many hours wasted, Asus declared my model DOA (Dead on arrival) and the wonderful people at TCR collected it.

I had to re-order machine number 2 from the even lovelier people at e-Buyer due to stock problems and no sooner did I get the new machine than it developed the same problem. After 3 weeks of frustration trying to get anyone to deal with the issue at Asus, I gave up and returned the machine to eBuyer. From what I understand this is not a software issue but is a hardware problem. I fear the two machines I tried were from the same batch of white 900EeePCs running Linux.

I still believe this is one of the best machines around so giving them one last try I asked eBuyer to replace the Linux version for the EeePC running Windows XP and bingo. My little mini mee runs like a dream and does everything I could ask of her. The keyboard may be a little small for men's hands but that means my husband goes scurrying back to his Mac. We go everywhere together and I would not be without my EeePC. But for all her glory I have learned that dealing with Asus is more painful than you could ever imagine so if you buy an EeePC, please bear that in mind. I think their woeful service is really letting down fantastic online retailers like eBuyer and TCR Direct.

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